Day 98 – Super Spiral

This design is also featured in the DVD Beginner Free Motion Quilting Fillers, as well as the ebook From Daisy to Paisley.

I guess I’ve been really in the mood for big, bold designs! We’ve had Jagged Cosmos, Flower Ball, Wobbly Cosmos and now Super Spiral!

Today I’m really going to try to get my work done quickly and go quilt for awhile. I’ve really not been spending enough time in my quilting room lately and I’m feeling a bit rusty!

I’m also feeling a bit pressured that I have too many balls up in the air at once.

I like to keep my focus on one main project at a time. Right now I have two Winter Wonderland quilts ready to be quilted, a red Kimono Jacket that’s cut but needing to be marked, more designs to get stitched, and a rag rug project I’ve started and have no clue when I’ll finish!

It’s easy to get too many projects going at once and when that happens, one or two just have to be placed in the closet for later. Prioritizing is really important with quilting, but it’s so hard!

Speaking of hard, let’s learn how to stitch this super easy Super Spiral!

Inspiration – I really like spirals. The symbol has been around for thousands of years and is associated with creation and fertility. I see it as a symbol of creativity and love to incorporate it somewhere in all of my quilts.

This super spiral was born out of a need for a bigger, more wave like shape. I really wanted this spiral to be big and dominating, as I plan to use it in yet another quilt I want to start soon.

I’m trying my best to be good and not start a big show quilt while working on this project, but my next goddess quilt – Emerging From Tradition – is clamoring in my head to get out!

Design Family – Edge to Center. It seems like all of these big, super sized designs are edge to center designs. This means that they work great when they have the room to stretch out and show off, but probably won’t look as good if you try to squeeze them in a complicated space.

Difficulty Level – Beginner. Again, like Jagged and Wobbly Cosmos, this is a great learning design. One of the biggest things you need to learn as a beginner is how to constantly judge and estimate the distance between your quilting lines.

This design will help you learn this necessary skill and the good news is, it hides your mistakes! If you wobble off a bit, it’s not going to look terrible.

Directional Texture – Center Focused. This design definitely attracts your eye to the center of the quilting space. Be careful about your thread play in the center of the spiral or it may get difficult to stitch!

Suggestions for Use – A great beginner quilting project is the Batik Beauty quilt which you can download for free here. Each block is 8″ finished, which gives you a huge playing field for a design like super spiral.

I have actually been waiting to quilt this quilt for my oldest sister. It’s been promised to her for 2 years now, so I guess I better get started on it! I’ll probably end up using designs like Super Spiral and Jagged Cosmos because they will fill the blocks quickly, but with loads of beautiful texture.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day